Some examples of compact composition operators on \(H^2\) (Q960540)

In this interesting article, several composition operators \(C_\varphi\) on the Hardy space \(H^2\) are constructed and their properties are studied. \textit{J. Shapiro} and \textit{P. D. Taylor} [Indiana Univ. Math. J. 23, 471--496 (1973; Zbl 0276.47037)] proved that \(C_\varphi\) belongs to the Hilbert-Schmidt class, or equivalently to the Schatten class \(S_2\), if and only if \(\int_T (1-| \varphi^*| )^{-1} < \infty\), with \(\varphi^*\) denoting the radial limit function of \(\varphi\) and \(T\) the unit circle. They asked which composition operators belong to different Schatten classes \(S_p\). As a consequence of Shapiro and Taylor's characterization, if two symbols \(\varphi_1\) and \(\varphi_2\) satisfy \(|\varphi_1^*|=|\varphi_2^*|\) on \(T\) and \(C_{\varphi_2}\in S_2\), then \(C_{\varphi_1}\in S_2\) as well. The present authors show that, for every \(p>2\), there are symbols \(\varphi_1\) and \(\varphi_2\) with the same modulus on the unit circle \(T\) such that \(C_{\varphi_1}\) is not compact while \(C_{\varphi_2}\) is in the Schatten class \(S_p\). They also reformulate resp., improve an example of Shapiro and Taylor to show that, for every \(p_0>0\), there is a symbol \(\phi\) such that \(C_\varphi\) is in the Schatten class for every \(p>p_0\) but not in \(S_{p_0}\), and also that, for every \(p_0>0\), there is a symbol \(\varphi\) such that \(C_\varphi\) is in \(S_{p_0}\) but not in \(S_p\) for each \(p<p_0\). Moreover, there is a symbol \(\varphi\) such that the composition operator \(C_\varphi\) is compact on \(H^2\) but in no Schatten class \(S_p\), \(p<\infty\), and there is another symbol \(\psi\) whose radial values satisfy \(|\psi^*|=|\varphi^*|\) on \(T\), but \(C_\psi \in S_p\) for all \(p>2\). The results in this paper are based on an improvement of a criterion for \(C_\varphi\in S_p\) due to \textit{D. H. Luecking} [J. Funct. Anal. 73, 345--368 (1987; Zbl 0618.47018)] in terms of pull-back measures, which is obtained in Section~3. The present research will be continued by the authors in the near future with a study of Hardy-Orlicz spaces on which the operators constructed by them are compact [cf. C. R., Math., Acad. Sci. Paris 344, No.~1, 5--10 (2007; Zbl 1109.47019)].